The Invisible Hand of Fate
"The Invisible Hand of Fate" is the third episode in the third season of The Venture Bros. Plot After slipping in his bathroom and falling, Billy Quizboy recovers several lost memories. Billy is about to shout accusations at Pete White when White knocks Billy unconscious with a Playstation 2 and phones Brock. A flashback story then begins, showing Billy on a game show called "Quizboys" hosted by Pete White. White wears gloves, makeup, and a wig to hide his albinism. Billy writes down an incorrect answer but the correct answer is unexpectedly displayed as his instead, thus winning him the game. In an obvious reference to the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, the other contestant and the public then accuse Billy of cheating. Unbeknown to them, White's hidden and unwelcome manipulation was actually to blame so Billy's reputation is unjustly harmed. In the dressing room after the game, White reveals his albinism to Billy and offers to make things right. Responsible for Billy's ruined reputation and loss of winnings, Pete White takes Billy to compete in a series of "underground" quiz challenges to finance a roadtrip to the Venture compound with the hopes of gaining employment as a scientist and a lab assistant. They arrive just as the OSI is hauling away a clearly disturbed Myra Brandish while Dr. Venture speaks with an agent. A baby Dean and Hank can be seen in the background, being held by H.E.L.P.eR.. After being denied jobs, White enlists Billy in what they believe is another quiz contest but is actually a dog fight. Billy loses the fight along with an eye, a hand, and all of his previous winnings (since White had placed a bet on Billy). Brock Samson and Colonel Hunter Gathers, two agents of OSI, have been tracking Billy Quizboy. They provide Billy with a robotic hand and eyeball in a plan to infiltrate the Guild of Calamitous Intent. A Professor Fantomos at "State University" is believed to be recruiting students into the Guild. Billy is enrolled in Fantomos's class and is comforted to find that most of his classmates have major deformities that make him "not so different" with his own enlarged head. Fantomos' assistant who is also Billy's roommate commits suicide and Billy is too busy answering questions to the police to write his paper. Billy observes that Fantomos is not flexible with the paper's due date when he sees him turn another student away ("Sheila;" AKA "Dr. Girlfriend"). Expecting to explain why his paper is late, Billy is surprised when Fantomos asks Billy to assist him with an experiment because of an impressive essay turned in with Billy's name. Once again, Billy was rail-roaded by others cheating for him and he is too intimidated to dispel the allegations. Unbeknown to his professor, OSI had cheated for Billy and used a paper written by Stephen Hawking. Fantomos is attempting to use a nuclear-powered machine to grow new limbs, as he was born with deformed, shrunken arms and legs and uses robotic appendages that fit over his real ones. The experiment goes awry when Billy has to shut the machine down using a technique his paper indicated he should know, but doesn't due to the deception. Billy's electronic eye is shown ripped from its socket in the chaos, thus necessitating his character's eye patch. Professor Fantomos' once deformed limbs enlarge to normal size and become invisible, gaining the power to kill through touch and thus he becomes the villain, Phantom Limb. As punishment for their failure, an OSI superior looking and sounding like Sgt. Hatred (later seen donning a Guild ring) indicates that Colonel Gathers was transferred to Guam and Brock Samson is apparently reassigned to be Dr. Venture's bodyguard. Billy's memory is wiped by OSI and Brock delivers Billy to a disheveled Pete White. The post-credits scene returns to the present as Billy awakens from an attempted memory wipe and angrily attacks Brock, prompting White to smash him over the head a second time. Though that attempt was clearly unsuccessful, it is unclear if his memories were successfully wiped again to return the series to the status quo. Cultural references *According to Jackson Publick, Fantomos is based on Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre's creation Fantômas.Publick Nuisance - The Invisible Hand of Fate Connections to other episodes *Professor Impossible's name is shown being removed from the door of the university's science department. Stephen Colbert, the voice of Professor Impossible, chose not to return to the show this season. Publick further stated that Professor Impossible's title being removed was not his way of showing disdain for Colbert leaving the show and that an early draft of the script contained a scene where it is revealed that Professor Impossible was forced to leave the university due to a scandal involving a student named Sally. *In the office of Professor Fantomas (aka Phantom Limb) while talking to Billy, the professor makes a reference to Mike Sorayama, a main driver of the plot of Past Tense (Venture Bros. episode) *In one of the flashbacks, Col. Hunter Gathers professes a desire to have "big, beautiful tits", a reference to the events of "Assassinanny 911", another episode with several flashbacks to Gathers' and Samson's partnership. After years of service in the OSI, Gathers goes AWOL and assumes a new, female identity via a sex-change operation. * In the OSI base, Steve Summers (the "six million dollar man" in the series) is seen walking by, a reference to Home Insecurity. Production notes *This was the first episode produced for season three, even though it aired third. *One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "The Invisible Hand of Fate" the credit reads Kimson "The Nozzle" Albert. References The Invisible Hand of Fate